Infrastructure and Major Service Providers in Yemen

Yemen’s internet infrastructure is limited and highly centralized. The backbone relies on a few aging international connections and an outdated domestic network. A single subsea cable – the FALCON/FLAG system landing at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah – carries most of Yemen’s bandwidth ukraine.wilsoncenter.org washingtoninstitute.org. In fact, almost all connectivity comes through this one aging cable, with only a narrow backup link via Djibouti and some expensive satellite links washingtoninstitute.org. During the civil war, land fiber links to Saudi Arabia were destroyed, leaving the country largely dependent on undersea cables washingtoninstitute.org. Internal infrastructure consists of microwave relays and limited fiber, with fixed-line broadband largely delivered via old DSL over copper telephone lines smex.org. This network has not seen significant upgrades during the conflict, resulting in very low bandwidth and reliability smex.org.

Major service providers in Yemen include:

YemenNet (PTC) – the state-run ISP operated by the Public Telecommunications Corporation in Sana’a. It was the sole provider of internet services nationwide until the war and remains the primary carrier under Houthi control smex.org. YemenNet offers DSL and other internet services but with slow speeds and high prices due to outdated infrastructure smex.org.
TeleYemen – historically the exclusive provider of international telecom for Yemen (handling international calls, internet gateways, etc.). TeleYemen is now also under Houthi de facto control and is effectively the sole provider of landline, mobile, and satellite internet services in Houthi-held areas arabnews.com.
AdenNet – a new government-run ISP launched in mid-2018 by the internationally recognized government in Aden to break the monopoly. Backed by Saudi/UAE funding, AdenNet provides fiber-optic broadband to institutions and 4G LTE wireless internet to consumers in government-controlled areas smex.org smex.org. Its network is independent of the Houthi-held Sana’a infrastructure (reportedly drawing connectivity via Saudi Arabia instead of the Hodeidah cables) smex.org. However, AdenNet’s coverage is still limited (on the order of only tens of thousands of subscribers) article19.org.
Mobile Operators – Yemen has four mobile telecom operators: YOU (Yemeni Omani United, formerly MTN Yemen), Sabafon, Yemen Mobile, and Y Telecom en.wikipedia.org. These companies provide GSM/CDMA mobile phone service and mobile internet. Yemen Mobile is state-owned (and uses CDMA/EVDO technology plus some LTE), while YOU (formerly MTN) was sold to a private/Omani investor and offers GSM/LTE, and Sabafon and Y Telecom are privately owned. Mobile networks cover major cities and much of the population, but coverage and capacity have been reduced by conflict. Mobile data is a crucial way many Yemenis get online, given the lack of fixed broadband in most areas.

International connectivity is a bottleneck. Besides the main FALCON undersea cable, Yemen has a couple of satellite earth stations (Intelsat/Intersputnik/Arabsat) and had microwave links to Saudi Arabia and Djibouti en.wikipedia.org. But due to war damage and lack of upgrades, the country’s bandwidth supply is very constrained, leading to slow speeds and frequent outages ukraine.wilsoncenter.org. For example, when the FALCON cable was cut by a ship’s anchor in January 2020, over 80% of Yemen’s internet capacity went down, causing a nationwide outage that lasted weeks until repairs were completed ukraine.wilsoncenter.org washingtoninstitute.org. Redundancy is limited – an outage or attack on the Hodeidah landing can effectively disconnect most of the country.